Tag Archives: Life

Living Love

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In 1970, Stephen Stills sang, “If you can’t be with the one you love, love the one you’re with…”  A few years earlier, John wrote: “Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.” (1 John 4:7b)

Does that mean Stephen Stills is “born of God?”  Not necessarily.  Because when John uses the word “love,” he means something very different from what Stephen means.  The opposite.  Here’s the key to understanding what John means by love.  He wrote,

This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us.  (1 John 3:16a)

“Love” is giving myself up for you – my wants, my pride, my self-interest, my needs, etc.  I set aside what I want in order to minister to what you need.  For, example If you “can’t be with the one you love,”  you will still be faithful to her.  The ultimate example of love is Jesus’ choice to die so that we could live.  It’s only in understanding what John means by love that we can make sense of the rest of what he wrote:

Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.  This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. (1 John 4:7-10)

Once again, John defines what he means by love.  But notice that God’s act of love is not pointless; it produces in us a new birth (born of God) into new life (…that we might live through Him).  Everyone who accepts God’s Gift of love – Jesus and His atoning sacrifice – is given the Spirit of God.  This Spirit is “born” in the believer and “lives” in him or her.  This is God’s Spirit, the Spirit of love, because “God is love.”

Make sure you follow the logic of these thoughts.  They are not just nice valentines from John, but revolutionary truths!  Only when you comprehend what John is saying here, only when you “get it” with an “Aha!” sort of understanding, will it make sense to read:

“Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.”

Dead or Alive?

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If you get trained in CPR, they frequently say things like, “Don’t worry about tearing their clothes or breaking a rib; they are dead; they won’t care – that is, unless you can bring them back to life!   Puts the whole deal into perspective.  It really matters when you go from death to life.

Jesus knew that humans were not connected to the Holy Spirit and were dead – “dead” like a cell phone is dead without a cell signal. (For another analogy, see Who Can Fix It?)  But Jesus came with spiritual CPR.  He said,

“I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life. (John 5:24)

Notice, that “eternal life” is not something given once a person dies, but is given at the moment of belief.  The crossover from death to life has already happened for those who believe. It is the Holy Spirit, living in their souls.  But this “new life” is given to people who had always assumed they were already alive!  But how can we be sure this new life is real?  How can we check?  On a phone, you make a call: if it goes through, you know your phone isn’t dead.  How can we know about eternal life?

John says:

We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our brothers. Anyone who does not love remains in death.  (1 John 3:14)

But what is “love?”  Anybody who has ever exchanged valentines in 3rd Grade knows that the word, love, is pretty loosey-goosey.  And everybody loves somebody in some kind of way.  But John doesn’t leave us wondering: He is talking about the kind of love that is the exact opposite of hate.

Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life in him.   This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.  (1 John 3:15-16)

Hate is a response designed to protect myself from someone who I think wants to take something away from me (could be money, girlfriend, fame, prestige, an aisle seat…).  Love, John says, is a response motivating me to give myself to someone because they have a need.  This isn’t 3rd Grade valentine love.  It’s not “I love you, I need you, I wa-aaaa-nt you…”  Not even close.  This is, “I will give myself up for you.”  Even if you hate me.

But let’s face it: we are not often in a situation where laying down our lives would make any difference for someone else.  So, John makes it practical, …  and threatening.  He says:

If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him?  Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.  (1 John 3:17-18)

Are you dead or alive?  John says, consider your response when you see someone in need.  If we turn away, hoping someone else takes care of the need, or perhaps rationalizing why it would be wrong for us to help, then “how can the love of God be in [us]?”  Whose love?  God’s!  Where?  In us! This kind of self-sacrificial love is so contrary to our ordinary human impulse that, when we see it in ourselves, we know God is doing it, we know God’s Spirit lives in us.   God’s love doesn’t just say, “I love you;” it puts that love into action!

John is not claiming that everyone who believes in Jesus is  immediately transformed into the person Mother Teresa wished she could be.  John knows that receiving the Spirit does not make us suddenly perfect in every way.  However, if you habitually harbor an attitude of hatred toward someone, or if you habitually turn away with indifference from someone else’s need, you have good reason to question whether you have “passed from death to life.”

But, if you notice a change in your heart, and find yourself acting with self-sacrificial concern for others, the costly kind of love Jesus extended to us,

This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence  whenever our hearts condemn us. For God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. (1 John 3:19-20)

Just the Way it Is

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Lately I’ve heard a bunch of complaining from Christians because they are not respected in this world.  Some say they are hated and persecuted for their beliefs.  John says, “Duh! What else is new?”

John knew that Jesus saw people in two groups: those heading for eternal life and those heading for death.  There was no middle ground.  Here is an example:

But he continued, “You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world.  I told you that you would die in your sins; if you do not believe that I am the one I claim to be,a you will indeed die in your sins.” (John 8:23-24)

In this life we think we are making progress if we are going faster. But it doesn’t matter how well you are doing if you are heading the wrong direction, away from life and toward death.  The turning point comes when we believe in Who Jesus claimed to be (God).  

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.  (John 3:16)

Jesus moves us from death to life because He gives us the Holy Spirit, connecting us eternally with the life of God.  Our human bodies die.  When given the life of the Spirit, our souls live forever.  Jesus said,

The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life.   (John 6:63)

The thief (Satan, the ruler of “the world”) comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I (Jesus) have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.  (John 10:10 – my added parenthetical notes)

When we believe, Jesus turns us away from death and toward life.  Our citizenship, our place of belonging, is transferred from “this world” to God’s family and His Kingdom.  Those who have the Spirit, take their cues and motivations from the Spirit.  Those who do not have the Spirit, take their cues and motivations from the ways of the world.  These two groups are moving in opposite directions and see things from two opposing viewpoints.  That is why John writes:

Do not be surprised, my brothers, if the world hates you.  We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our brothers. Anyone who does not love remains in death.   (1 John 3:13-14)

The “world” hates those who believe in Jesus?  Really?  That is what Jesus taught:

“If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first.  If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. (John 15:18-19)

Gang members know, if they ever leave the gang to pursue a different lifestyle, with different rules and a different way of seeing the world, the rest of the gang will hate them.  May even try to kill them.  That’s what happens when you leave the gang of “the world” to follow Jesus.  No point complaining about it; it’s just the way it is.

No Middle Ground

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If you don’t love your brother you might just as well murder him.  There is no middle ground.  Hold on!  Step away from the gun.  I am making a point (actually John is) in a blunt way.  There is no middle ground between love and murder when considering whether your actions are motivated by the Holy Spirit or by Satan.  Your actions reveal to whom you belong.  Here’s how John sets it up:

This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not a child of God; nor is anyone who does not love his brother. (1 John 3:10)

Somebody asks, “Hey, John, what if I just sort of tolerate my brother?  Do I really have to love him?”  John’s response is:

This is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another. Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother. (1 John 3:11-12a)

There is no middle ground.  Any attitude toward your brother that is not produced by the Holy Spirit is motivated ultimately by Satan.  The Spirit produces life; Satan comes to kill and destroy.  John says, you either are a child of God and have His Spirit, or you do not and are a child of Satan. That sounds harsh to us.  We want shades of gray, ambiguity, moral no man’s land.  But spiritual reality leaves no middle ground.  It is like the sharp edge of a sword, dividing one side from another.   Jesus taught this “either-or” message in the sermon on the mount”

 “You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘Do not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’  But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to his brother, ‘Raca,’ is answerable to the Sanhedrin. But anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell. (Matthew 5:21-22 )

There is no middle ground.  You either are in step with, and powered up by, the Spirit of God, Who gives life, or ultimately serve the one who brings death.  That teaching is tough.  It doesn’t sound reasonable.  But it is true.  We might compare it to the attitude of a college football coach who will not accept anything less than 100% from his players.  Any player who is half-hearted, who simply goes through the motions, might just as well go sit with the other team.  No middle ground. The difference with John’s teaching is that who you are, which “team” you are on, is not based on personal effort but rather on a gift, God’s Gift, His Spirit.  That is why John calls those who live by the Spirit “Children of God.”  They have been born into new life in a new family.  In his Gospel, John explains it:

Yet to all who received him [Jesus], to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God—children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God. (John 1:12-13)

If this doesn’t rub abrasively against your natural instincts, you should read it again, chew on it some more.  There is more coming…

What Can I Expect?

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A buddy of mine asked, “I hear so much about the Holy Spirit: Who is He and what can I expect if He comes to me?” The first answer is the Holy Spirit is God. He is the form in which God lives inside humans, enabling us to know God and respond to God. That’s the second answer. It’s kind of like this: Satellites send an invisible, wave of energy to your GPS device, that enables it to be a GPS, to become more than just a dead box of hardware and software. When the GPS gets the signal, it becomes fully alive, which means it is now able to operate the way it was designed to operate. God sends His Holy Spirit to those who will receive Him, so that we can operate the way we were designed to operate.

This is not some new change of plans for God; He has always had it in mind to do this. 700 years before Jesus, He told Ezekiel about His plan:

And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. … (Ezekiel 36:28)

God’s plan is to to put His Spirit in us and make us fully alive. Religion tells us to try harder to obey the rules. God tells us, “I will put My Spirit in you and cause you to live as I have designed you to live” (my paraphrase of Ezekiel 36:27-28). When we operate as we were designed to operate, we become fully alive. In other words, God’s Spirit is our life.

Jesus once shocked and startled people by saying:

“I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. (John 6:53b)

But then He explained what He meant. He said:

“Does this offend you? … The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. (John 6:61-63 – excerpts)

The Spirit of God, living in us – guiding us, empowering us, connecting us to God in real time – is our life. With Him installed, we become fully alive. With that idea in mind, chew on these other quotes from Jesus:

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16)

“I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” (John 10:10b)

“…I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever— the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. … Because I live, you also will live. On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. (John 14:16b-20 excerpts)

Obviously, my friend needed more of an answer than those short tidbits. And we will go into it further in future posts. But, if this is new to you, chew on it. It is the essence of the fresh bread of life. Perhaps if you chew on it, one day you will be ready to swallow it.

Who Can Fix It?

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Let’s go deeper into a statement from the last post: “Religion cannot work because nothing a dead man can do will restore him to life.  The only One Who can restore “dead” humans to life,  who can restore the flow of His Spirit,  is God.”  (See: The Futility of Religion)

Just under 10 years ago, NASA sent a robotic “rover” to Mars,

English: Artist's rendering of a Mars Explorat...

English: Artist’s rendering of a Mars Exploration Rover. Français : Vue d’artiste d’un Mars Exploration Rover (litt. « rover d’exploration martienne »). (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

designed to receive transmitted instructions from earth, follow them, and prowl around on the surface of the planet.  But something went wrong with the operating system of the rover.  He could not communicate properly with the transmissions from Pasadena.  Let’s suppose, in that condition, the rover could still move around on the planet.  Even though he could do stuff,  there would be no way for him to do what the engineers who designed him wanted him to do.  Because the necessary communication was cut off, he would essentially be dead.  Suppose the defect that cut off communication also prevented the rover from using its solar battery chargers.  Maybe it couldn’t point the panels in the right direction.   Soon it would not only be dead to communication but also physically dead – out of power as well.  (This is not exactly what really happened; I’m tweaking the details to make an analogy.)  

Here’s the point: The rover couldn’t fix itself.  Communication with the engineers was dead.  Power was going to eventually be dead, too.  The only party that could accomplish the fix  was the engineers.  They observed the problem, diagnosed it, and initiated the process by which it was eventually fixed.

Using that analogy to illustrate our situation with God, our communication with God (His Spirit) has been cut off.  In that condition, there is no way for us to do what we were designed and intended to do.  We can roam around the planet and do stuff, just not the right stuff.  The Bible word, sin, simply means doing the wrong stuff.  We are “spiritually dead;” our communication with the “Engineer” is down.   As a result, we will also physically die, too.   We cannot fix that.  Nothing we can do will make His Spirit connect.    That’s the bad news.  The good news is that He has observed the problem, diagnosed it, and has initiated the process by which it may be fixed.  God said He would repair our operating system:

I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.  And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. (Ezekiel 36:26-27)

PS: The name of the Mars rover?  Spirit!  Stay tuned…

The Futility of Religion

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Religion doesn’t work.  By ‘religion,’ I mean man-made attempts to get close to God and earn His acceptance by performing rituals and following rules.  We humans feel “something” is missing  We are wired to go looking for it.  Most have a sense that what’s missing is our connection to God.  We sense He is “out there“ somewhere, but we can’t seem to find Him.  We know the difference between good and bad, and yet we cannot consistently be good.  Religion is our human attempt to fix that emptiness and failure.  It seeks to fill the emptiness with ritual, such as chanting, singing, saying prayers, swinging incense and the like.  It seeks to repair the failure with lists of strict “do’s and don’ts” and punishments for those who screw up.  Every religion that I am aware of is a combination of those two elements.  People who strive to connect to God and to be good by following religion are usually sincere and well-meaning, but inevitably fail.

Why is that?  Let’s take it from the top:

God knows our connection with Him is broken.  It was broken from the beginning.  The first three chapters of the Bible (Genesis 1-3) form a powerful narrative that illustrates two profound truths:  1) We were created by God to have an intimate connection and relationship with Him that depends upon trust.  2) That connection is broken when we turn away from God and trust our own ideas.  Adam and Eve had an intimate relationship with God – they could hear Him and speak to Him, and they walked with Him in the “cool of the day.”   But when they doubted God that intimate connection was broken.

God designed human beings to be connected to Him by His Spirit.  Your computer is connected to mine by the internet.  My television is connected to America’s Got Talent by means of a satellite signal.  Your cell phone is connected to your Aunt Louise by an invisible cell signal.  All of these connections are possible because of the the equipment was designed.  God designed us to connect with Him by His Holy Spirit.  When you don’t have any cell signal, you say your phone is dead.  It still lights up, it still goes “boop” when you push the buttons, but it is dead. When God disconnects us from the flow of His Spirit, we are dead.  Our bodies work, our minds still work, but we are dead.  That’s why God said to Adam:

when you eat of it [i.e. when you doubt Me and disobey Me] you will surely die. (Genesis 2:17b)

Adam’s body didn’t die, his soul (his mind) didn’t die.  His connection to God died.  Since his original act of doubt and disobedience, all people have been born  with the equipment to connect to God, but without His Spirit.  We have been born dead.

Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned— (Romans 5:12)

Religion cannot work because nothing a dead man can do will restore him to life.  The only One Who can restore “dead” humans to life,  who can restore the flow of His Spirit,  is God.   That is why Jesus said,

…I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. (John 10:10b)

Guess how that “life” happens?    Stay tuned…

The Source of Power in Faith

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There is a commonly held, new-age idea that belief – belief in anything – in and of itself, does powerful, good things for you.  Sounds nice, but it is nonsense.  A buddy of mine believed he was a magpie (Ahh, yes — remember the 70’s?).  His belief was confusing but it was not powerful.  But there is something powerful going on when God uses faith to interact and connect to humans  (See: “Loud and Clear”).  But how is that faith any different?  Where does the power come from?  Faith is a necessary ingredient, but it doesn’t do the work.  God does.

It’s sort of like this: If I want to start using Facebook, I can’t just do it because my computer is not automatically equipped for it. First, I have to ask the folks at Facebook to send me a download of software or an “App.”  I receive it, install it, and then my computer is enabled to make that connection. Something similar goes on when God connects to people by faith.  It is a powerful something, something that is rarely explained, even by Christians.

Before any connection to God is made by faith, a “download” is necessary.  But it isn’t software God gives you, it is something alive – Someone alive –  the Holy Spirit.  God comes and lives in you, by His Holy Spirit.  Really!   It starts when someone has an “Aha!” moment of understanding that Jesus is God, Who has come to us in understandable human form (See: “One Plus Two Equals One”).  When a person crosses that threshold of faith, their natural response is to want to draw closer to God, to communicate with Him.  God connects interactively with people who believe like that.   But it isn’t the act of believing that makes the connection happen.  It’s the “download” from God, the Gift from God that powers it up. Here’s how Jesus said it.

 “If you [really believe in Me] I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever—  the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.  (John 14:15b -17 – with my added clarification )

This is the key. This is how and why  faith connects us.  God gives us His Spirit and by that Spirit, He lives within us. Really!  It’s so fantastic, so unexpected, that Jesus practically stood on His head to explain it.  He said:

Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.  (John 14:19-20)

Jesus replied, “If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.  (John 14:23)

 

This process of receiving  (downloading and installing!) the Holy Spirit is so crucial, that, after His resurrection, Jesus told His disciples to wait for the Spirit before they tried to do anything.

“Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about. For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit…   But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you…”  (Excerpts from Acts 1:4-8]

When God gives His Spirit, as a response to faith, and therefore lives in a human soul, that soul becomes alive in a powerfully new and full way.  God’s Spirit is “born” in him or her.  That is why Jesus told a religious teacher he must be “born from on above” (commonly translated as “born again” – John 3:1-3).  He said that physical birth is not enough for complete life, for truly connecting to God:

Jesus answered, “I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit.  You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’  (John 3:5-7)

It starts with faith.  Faith is how we reach out to God to receive His Spirit.  But God’s Spirit makes the connection and brings the new life.  Therein is the astonishing power in faith.

Who’s the Best? Who’s the Blessed?

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Which son was the best: the obedient, older son or his wild and reckless brother – the one we call the “Prodigal Son?”   If you haven’t read through that challenging parable of Jesus recently, you can find it at this link:  or in the Gospel of Luke in chapter 15:11-32.  But which kid was the best in his father’s eyes: the one that took his inheritance early and ran off to lose it all in wild living?  Or was it the one who faithfully stayed home and worked hard on the farm?  That sounds like an easy question, unless you’ve ever been a father.

At the end of Jesus’ story, the younger, wilder brother has been reconciled to his father and is enjoying a joyous homecoming celebration.  The older and more responsible brother is outside, sulking  by himself, missing the party.  But notice the attitude of the father.  When he saw the younger brother was coming home, he saw him a long way off and ran to meet him.  When he heard the older boy was refusing to come in  to the party, he went out and pleaded with him to come in.  The father loved both boys and yearned for them both to be in close fellowship with him.  He went out to find both boys.  As far as the father is concerned, they are both loved.

So why is one brother, the one who didn’t deserve it, reunited in close fellowship with his father and why is the good boy estranged?  The difference was the turning point in the attitude of the younger brother.  He realized that he had separated himself from his father and did not deserve to be considered a son.  And then he turned around, with no excuse and nothing to offer, to ask his father to take him on as a hired hand.  If you have been chewing on the “Fresh Bread” from Isaiah 57:15 (See “In a Nutshell”), this was the moment when the younger son became “lowly and contrite.”  God told Isaiah He would live with the person who was lowly and contrite in order to bring that person back to life.  That life, we have shown, is the Spirit of God, living in the soul of a person, connecting him or her to God the Father in an intimate and interactive way.  This was the way God designed us to live.  It is no accident that Jesus ended His parable with the father telling the older son, “…this brother of yours was dead and isalive again; he was lost and is found.” (Luke 15:32b)

God designed us to be fully alive, fully reconciled to Him.  His life is full life and He yearns to give that life, His Spirit, to anyone who will accept it.  Which necessarily means anyone who turns around and comes home to Him “without one plea.”  The trouble is, we humans  want to work to be good enough to be loved by God.  Just like the older brother.  There is no real life standing outside  with the older brother, with your arms crossed and your lower lip sticking out,   There is no reconciliation for those who cling to self-righteous pride.

If your little boy or your young daughter came to you and said, “Daddy (or Mommy), if I clean up my room and make my bed, then will you love me?” how would you respond?   Your child cannot earn your love; it is logically impossible because love is a gift.  It’s that way with parents and also with God.  God is our Loving Father.

Which son is best, which son blessed?   Better yet, which son (or daughter) are you?

PS – There is a reason it feels right to us to try to earn God’s love.  Stay tuned…

The “Why?” Question

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Isaiah 57:15 can be seen as the key to the message of the whole Bible.

For this is what the high and lofty One says — he who lives forever, whose name is holy: “I live in a high and holy place, but also with him who is contrite and lowly in spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite. Isaiah 57:15

The question we raised last time (see: “In a Nutshell”) was why?  Why would the God of the universe, the One Who “lives forever,” Who exists beyond all time and space “in a high and holy place,” also live “with him who is contrite and lowly”?  Set aside the “who” question – what is it about the contrite and lowly – and focus on the “why?” question.  The idea seems preposterous, that Almighty God would somehow choose to inhabit humans.  Remember the vast size and scope of His Creation, and what a tiny speck our whole solar system is in that universe?  Even our Milky Way Galaxy, at a mere 100,000 light years wide, is only a tiny speck in space.  

English: Artist's conception of the spiral str...

English: Artist’s conception of the spiral structure of the Milky Way with two major stellar arms and a central bar. “Using infrared images from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope, scientists have discovered that the Milky Way’s elegant spiral structure is dominated by just two arms wrapping off the ends of a central bar of stars. Previously, our galaxy was thought to possess four major arms.” (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Why would God care about a certain life form on earth, much less arrange to live in us?  King David asked that question, roughly 3000 years ago:

When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?   Psalm 8:3-4

The answer to the “why?” question is given in  Isaiah above .  It is ” to revive the spirit … and to revive the heart …”  God does it to revive us. The original word translated, revive, means “to bring something back to life!”  It means to take something that is dead and make it alive.

Chew on this: If God lives with someone to bring him or her back to life, it follows that this person must be dead.  But she or he is also “lowly and contrite,” attributes that cannot belong to the dead.  Dead guys don’t have character traits.  So then, in what sense are they (are we) dead?   Stay tuned…